


Clockwork

by anamatics



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28651560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: There’s this girl that comes into the coffee shop and stays until close.  Every day.  Like clockwork.  She buys a mocha red eye and doesn’t drink it, sitting by the fogged-up window and staring outside.  Sometimes she reads.  Sometimes she writes.  She leaves scraps of paper on the table, half penned poems for Laura to clean up.(Laura keeps every one.)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 46





	Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> written sometime in the doldrums between writing and prepping for season two. enough time has passed to stick it up here.

Laura isn’t a nervous person. Exceptionally socially awkward: yes, definitely, but nervous? No. She tends to pick at stuff when she is feeling nervous. Neat little shredded receipts or napkins, an orange peel picked to bits over a particularly tense lunch. Little piles of her worries left behind for others to clean up. It frees her mind and allows her to focus on the moment at hand.

“Are you going to eat that?" LaFontaine leans across the break room table and pokes at Laura’s final orange slice.

Laura snatches it away and jams it into her mouth. LaFontaine’s eye roll almost makes it worth it. "She’s coming in later." Laura swallows, wincing at the citrusy tang as it slides uncomfortably down her throat. "I’m gonna do it.”

“Uh huh.”

“No, for real, LaF, I’m gonna.”

“You said that yesterday, and the day before. She’s just a person, Laura, she isn’t that scary.”

“She’s terrifying.”

LaFontaine leans back, chair scraping against the floor and then up onto two legs. This is a conversation that they’ve had many times now, Laura arguing for her fears, LaFontaine telling her to man up.

Girl up.

It’s all very confusing sometimes.

“Hey, breaktime’s over, best go face the music." Laura gets to her feet and clears away her shredded orange peel and sandwich wrapper. Her dad’s on an egg salad kick recently, it’s a little slimy, but ultimately fulfilling and full of delicious mayonnaise-y goodness. LaFontaine had said it was disgusting how much Laura relished eating it. Laura had stuck her tongue out.

They’re very mature.

Outside the break room, the evening collection of students has grown. Behind the counter, Lola, their boss, is at the till. She’s about to get off for the night, leaving LaF to man the espresso machine and Laura on the till until closing at two am.

Laura likes this job. She’s landed the night shift for days opposite her first class at eleven thirty. LaF is great to work with, and Perry’s a pretty good manager for a high-strung German major. Their other coworkers are boys that Laura only ever sees at the weekend, so she doesn’t know them all that well. They seem nice enough though. 

There’s this girl that comes into the coffee shop and stays until close. Every day. Like clockwork. She buys a mocha red eye and doesn’t drink it, sitting by the fogged-up window and staring outside. Sometimes she reads. Sometimes she writes. She leaves scraps of paper on the table, half penned poems for Laura to clean up.

(Laura keeps every one.)

(–left vicelike on our hearts  
we suffocate love with silence.)

"Laura’s going to ask her today, Per.”

“I don’t see why you’re so obsessed with her.” Lola is shrugging off her red apron and hanging it on the hook behind the counter. LaF is in the middle of putting theirs on, and Laura’s adjusting her name tag. “She’s really not the sort of person you just talk to out of the blue." Lola had a philosophy class with her last semester and apparently Laura’s crush - this dark haired girl in overly large sweaters and a chunky-knit scarf - is horribly stand-offish and unpleasant to boot. 

"She’s just so…” Laura gives an uncharacteristically girlish sigh. “Dreamy.” This gets her another truly epic eye roll from LaF and Lola shaking her head, one hand caught in her curls. “Oh come on, she’s totally hot.”

“Yeah, in a ‘said the spider to the fly’ sort of way.”

“LaF, you are so not helping." Lola gathers up her things and slings her bag over her shoulder.

"Jus’ tellin’ it like it is." 

"Well, I’m telling you it’s not like that at all." Lola pauses, glancing towards the frosted, fogged windows. Laura follows her gaze, but the drafty seat by the window favored by her dark-haired girl is empty yet. She’ll be in later. "It’s supposed to be really cold tonight, let the faucet drip?”

LaF gives a salute and Lola smiles. “Gotcha Per." 

They’re roommates, best friends. And it’s probably for the better that no one gives LaF any responsibility. Lola’s a floor don at school too, but Laura doesn’t live in the dorms because her father won’t let her live in those 'cesspools of germs and discharge.' Laura thought he was giving the first year guys entirely too much credit. 

The shop makes it easy to fall into a routine and it’s ten o'clock before Laura even realizes that she’s hungry and due for another break. She makes instant oatmeal and sits on the counter, talking to LaF and one of the bio majors cramming for a practical the next morning. LaF is ace at bio, and never seems to need to study for it when she comes in.

Laura’s got her spoon hanging out of her mouth, listening to LaF recount this story that Laura is sure going to end with fiery death, when the draft from the door makes her turn. They’ve been pretty dead tonight. Just the regulars, and a few late-night sandwich orders. She’s already cleaned out the coffee grinder three times and she’s on break.

It’s as good a reason as any to be social. 

The dark haired girl is bundled up in a bulky military style jacket, beanie pulled down low across her forehead. Her skin is pale as the moon outside and Laura wants to know her name. She wants to know what the deal is with the snippets of poetry she finds left behind, or why she never seems to smile.

LaF takes her order and she goes to sit down.

Laura follows, her spoon and cold oatmeal clenched in her fists, a shield against what is sure to be rejection.

"I don’t want compa–” she turns then, catches sight of Laura, and her expression softens. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Hi,” Laura says.

A grunt, she turns away again, goes back to her things. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Laura brandishes her spoon and cup full of oatmeal. “Nah, lunch break." She takes a bite to prove it, earning herself a wrinkled nose and a sneering,

"And you’re eating gloop?”

“It’s instant oatmeal, and I ate a full dinner earlier." Laura grins sheepishly. "I only have a fifteen minute break.”

“Well, then I won’t take up anymore of your time, cupcake." She moves to sit down, shrugging off her jacket despite the drafty window and pulling books and papers from her battered backpack. 

Laura stands there for a moment, at a loss for words. She casts a panicked glance over her shoulder. LaF smiles and nods encouragingly. Laura swallows down panic and sets her jaw. “Look. I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“You already are talking to me.” It’s said on a sigh, exasperated and annoyed. Laura wants the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

Laura’s about to give up, walk away, pretend this humiliation never happened, that this girl is every bit the asshole Lola said she was, but she stops. She won’t do it. She wants to be known by this girl. She wants her number and the poetry spelled out by her tongue. She wants to finally get over herself and _like_ someone without the fear and the pain and little piles of her perfectly shredded nerves left on the table. “I’m Laura.” She holds out her hand.

“I know.” The girl leans forward, taps Laura’s nametag with her sharpie blackened fingernail. “Carmilla,” she offers. It doesn’t feel like a white flag, but a victory none the less. 

Laura sets her oatmeal down and digs in her apron pocket, pulling out the folded bit of paper that she’d kept since this ridiculous quest had started. On it are penned another poem, one that Laura thinks is complete. One that might be missed. “Here,” she says. “You left this here a few weeks ago, I keep um… _forgetting_ to give it back.”

Carmilla takes the paper, flips it open. She reads for a moment and then crumples it up and drops it to the floor. “Not my best work.”

“Double Mocha Red Eye?” LaF calls from behind the counter, and Carmilla brushes past Laura smelling of salt and smoke and snow. 

(While her back is turned, Laura bends and hurriedly picks up the crumpled poem.)

(lo –  
Your face comes  
lips torn, heart a gaping maw -  
and I have yet to  
wrest truth from deceit;  
the black pit of my soul)

**Author's Note:**

> who _wouldn't_ write a coffee shop au for their own fandom, only post it to tumblr and then sit on it for five years before posting it here?


End file.
